Do Not Speak Against the Sun
by auntarctica
Summary: He knew that with a single act, Vergil had just broken his world. A world held together with duct tape and spite, but his world, nonetheless; the scaffold he'd hung his life upon.


Night fell hard on Limbo City, like it always did.

If not for the stunning sunset that briefly surged through the wide-open sky before him, Dante wouldn't have noticed—the darkness spilling after, like ink down the alleyways, beating the city black and blue; holding it hostage, smothered beneath the blanket of night, riddled with lights like bullet holes, or a thousand cigarette burns.

Down below the streets still teemed with neon and vice, as humans in thrall went on living in oblivion, each chasing their chosen opiate, hapless and chained by their distraction. His whole life he'd walked among them; an outsider. Alone in a crowd, but never apart from its cacophony.

Here and now, in Vergil's ivory tower—this sanctuary, high above the sedated masses—the spreading metropolis was reduced to a distant, silent ballet of cars blazing and slowing, surrounded by a backdrop of glittering lights that stood in for the absent stars above. Even the blaring billboards seemed quaint at this vantage. Virility™ had gone dark, city-wide, but there were others; bright lies that could only be read for truth through the dark lens of Limbo.

He'd never known a calm or a solitude like this, not once in his entire life of institutional indenture. Institutions were quiet, sometimes—during lights out, or lockdown—but never serene, never tranquil. Dante could actually feel the thrum of his heart, deep and slow, luxuriating in its new circumstance, and he knew beyond a doubt that it existed, for the first time since the day he'd literally ripped his own chest open to check.

He was sprawled in his brother's rolling chair before the glow of a sleek, gleaming monitor, reading Vergil's beautiful propaganda in the electric twilight. And it was beautiful; his brother had a way with words, with the turn of a phrase—the kiss to the knuckles and the twist that set it spinning. It was the kind of writing that drew you along from word to word, until you forgot you were reading words at all. The kind of writing that felt like it bloomed right there in your own mind, like thoughts that had always been there, but had just been dusted off, uncovered, and presented to you; a priceless gift you'd never known you already owned.

Dante heard the mechanical symphony of the lumbering industrial lift long before it reached the top, settling even with the wide-plank floors with a jostle that was becoming familiar. He glanced up as the cage rolled open and his brother emerged. Casually lashed into his tailored peacoat, he cut an unmistakable figure.

"I'm back."

"I noticed."

Staring past the monitor, he saw Vergil's reflection in the many-paned ceiling-high steel factory windows that faced the city, a snowy-headed and silvery sketch hovering in the night sky outside, like his phantom in Limbo.

Windows made up most of the walls of his brother's makeshift industrial penthouse, which took up an entire floor, boasting views on all sides. Cityscape, waterfront, bridge, mountain range; each equally spectacular in its own way, depending on the hour. By now, he'd had the opportunity to appreciate them all.

Dante appreciated this view the most.

He'd only known his brother for a handful of days, but in that scant time certain facts had shaken out between them. He'd gone to group homes and mental hospitals and juvenile hall; Vergil had gone to prep school and the Ivy League. Vergil had millions acquired through his brilliance, which had allowed him to also secure their inheritance, but was willing and eager to share the legacy. Their legacy, he insisted, with that strange, rapt fervency that made him so compelling. So believable.

At first it had made Dante uneasy, how much he believed Vergil. How much he wanted to trust him, and how defensive that immediate, intrinsic instinct made him. But his brother had won him over, steady and unwavering, clear-eyed and patient, his hand outstretched, like a man content to wait for a wary stray to tame itself.

"Hope you're hungry."

"Starving." Dante rubbed his neck and flicked his eyes down to the screen, but they soon drifted back to the glass, surreptitiously watching as his brother set down the bag he'd been carrying, unwound his scarf and shed his coat. The scarf was for show, Dante knew; it wasn't that cold out yet. It looked good on him, though.

Now he was stripped down to the Vergil that Dante saw the most of late; not the straight-backed, cleanly-bound, calm-browed leader of the Order, crisp and smooth in his pseudo-paramilitary aesthetic, but the man beneath the sartorial armor; intimate and at ease in narrow pinstriped pants that lost their dress pretentions without the black jacquard formality of the double-buttoned coat. His body-skimming sweater was a dark heathered garnet that clung to his sculpted arms and had the look of something that was thin and light because it wasexpensive, and not the opposite.

It had a low V-neck, made deeper by the pull of his broad shoulders and chest. Dante eyed that in spite of himself, as Vergil unpacked the bag onto the polished concrete island of the open kitchen space.

"I picked up some sashimi—is that all right? I don't have it in me to bother with rolls tonight, so I thought we'd just do chirashi bowls. They had real sawa wasabi root, though. Freshly grated, there's just no comparison. You'll see; it's great. You'll never want to go back to fake chartreuse hot mustard again. You'll have to, though, because the real thing's so hard to find."

"Whatever you say," said Dante. _All the stuff you've made so far has been amazing_, remained unsaid on the edge of his tongue until it passed its speak-by date, fading back up into his mind, the sentence dissembling once more into singular words for later use.

The first night he'd come to the Order, Kat and Vergil had brought him here, to the top floor of the warehouse next door, to Vergil's loft apartment. It was nothing like the dark, ominous, workmanlike garage, or the barrack-like communal accommodations above it, used by unobtrusive members of the organization who came and went at all hours of the day and night, seemingly self-directed by no more than a deep understanding of his brother's bidding.

With its panoramic sweep of the metropolis and the soundless streets far below, it seemed set among the clouds—a brick and concrete heaven with thirty-foot ceilings and weathered wooden floors warmed by antique Turkish rugs and white floor-to-ceiling curtains.

"Quite the catbird seat," he'd said slowly, taking it in.

"More like a crows' nest," said Kat, obviously proud of their headquarters, and her boss. "This building is Vergil's. We only rent the other one. Under an alias, of course."

Dante glanced at him. "You own it?"

"My name's not on it, but…through a complicated series of shells, yes, I technically do. The nice part is, there's plenty of room."

"Yeah, I'll say."

"You can take the bed," Vergil said, at once, nodding toward the stairs that led to the loft. "The sheets are fresh," he added, as if that was something Dante should care about.

Or maybe, in hindsight, it was his way of saying he'd always known Dante would stay, or at least that he'd hoped; cared enough to have a place all ready for him to crash.

"I'll take the couch," said Dante, nodding at one of the stylishly mismatched vintage leather chesterfields. Camel and cordovan. Force of habit made him say it; self-preserving isolationism, even though he was exhausted from the carnival brawl, and a newly-made bed sounded better than anything he could imagine. His own bed was decidedly unmade at the moment, somewhere in the poetic wreck of his upside-down trailer, and he knew the sheets were far from fresh.

Vergil nodded, seemingly understanding. "Suit yourself. We've got plenty of bedding. It won't be for long, anyway. Just until we get you your own bed. Your own space." He hesitated. "If you want it."

"Couch is fine. Doesn't matter how long."

"I went back," broke in Kat. "To the pier, to get your things. Clothes, necessities."

"I told her it was too risky," said Vergil, with a sigh. "But she'd already done it."

"I don't own much. But that's great. Thanks." Dante gave her a genuinely appreciative nod.

"I was able to gather most of it." She reached up into her hood, self-consciously tucking a slipped strand of hair behind her ear. "I even found your toothbrush in the road, but I figured you wouldn't want it. So I picked you up a new one. It's in the bag."

Dante smiled. "Good thing you went back instead of me. I'd have probably just rinsed it off and used it anyway. Three-hour rule, right?"

"Thanks, Kat." Vergil turned his attention to Dante. "Anything else you need, say the word and we'll get it. In the meantime, use whatever you want. What's mine is yours, brother."

"Thanks," said Dante. It was disconcerting being the sole focus of that intense gaze, so like his own, familiar yet foreign. His body responded in ways he didn't want to acknowledge. "I don't need a lot."

"I know you're probably tired," Vergil said, "but you really should eat something. We all should."

"We could just order a pizza," Dante said. "I'm not picky."

"We don't really take deliveries here. We take precautions. But we can do take-out."

"I can go pick it up—" volunteered Kat, immediately.

Dante raised a hand in protest. "No, Kat, you stay. You've done enough. I'll do it."

"We should probably all lie low tonight, and not go out if we can help it. Especially Dante. Let's see what I've got on hand." Vergil scanned the contents of the vintage refrigerator with the acuity of a sharpshooter. "All right, how about this: shirred eggs in cream with…sautéed chanterelles, chèvre and cubed pancetta. Maybe a little fresh arugula over the top. Voilà. Breakfast for dinner."

"You can make that?"

"Vergil's an amazing cook," Kat enthused, starry-eyed.

Dante shook his head. "Doesn't sound like any breakfast I ever had."

"It's really more like brunch…" said Kat.

Vergil frowned, brow knitting, pursing his lips slightly. "Let me see what else I can do—"

"No," Dante said, quickly. "That sounds incredible, whatever it is. I just meant…I never had it so good."

Vergil paused, hand on the refrigerator door, and turned to look at him, slowly. "Neither of us have ever had it this good, Dante." His voice was shot through with low, unguarded warmth and raw sincerity. "We've both been deprived; in different ways, I'll grant you. But we're together now."

Now was good.

They had fallen into some strange semblance of normalcy, between insurrections, between missions. Vergil was a gracious host, sharing his refuge readily, generous with everything, including his inner sanctum. He was so matter-of-fact in this that Dante never felt like an intruder in his space, never like a black sheep, or just a useful relic salvaged from the wreck of their past. His brother always seemed as happy to see him as he had the first time, which was to say almost elated. It never seemed forced, never like an act. And eventually, Dante could no longer bring himself to doubt his sincerity.

Against his will, it was beginning to feel like a home to him. Not just one he recognized from the outside, pressed against the glass, like a kid staring at a diorama in a department store window, but one he could actually touch. One that could touch him in turn.

One that wanted to.

By now, he knew: it wasn't so much the Order that felt like home, or the penthouse in the clouds, but Vergil himself. It had been surreal to discover how easily he'd folded into his brother's life—he, who'd never fit in anywhere—and how fully Vergil embraced him in turn. And with that came the sobering realization of just how big the missing piece had been, and the grief he'd never known enough to feel. Something far greater than a lost limb, and more like a soul, brutally cloven; cauterized only by artificial amnesia. Less an amputation and more a vivisection. They'd been robbed of it all, both the damage and its mourning.

But they were together, now. Even more so in this oddly contented moment, as Vergil idly put things in order and he pretended to read. Just the two of them. In the next moment, Dante realized it was true literally, and not just figuratively.

"Where's Kat?" he asked, absently, after a moment.

In his peripheral vision, Vergil glanced at him. "In her own quarters, I imagine. Just below mine. Why?"

"Just wondering. Kinda weird that she hasn't come up. She's like a little moon, orbiting you. Or a satellite or something." He rubbed his head slowly, studying the screen without really seeing it. "It's sorta cute."

"Kat's great. The best acolyte a guy could ask for. But I want you and I to spend more time together, one on one. Get to know each other again."

"Yeah," said Dante, a beat late, surprised. "Sure thing."

Not that they could have known each other all that well to begin with, at seven. The memories he'd unearthed at Paradise Manor were staggering but incomplete; fragments and details were still working themselves free from the newly softened walls of his mind, emerging now and then like shrapnel. But when they did, they were vivid—saturated and rich and alive as baroque tableaux. They came to him spontaneously, the longer they hung around each other. Small, sweet frescoes of their shared past. Moments he'd enshrined as a child.

He remembered Vergil as a solemnly smiling white-haired boy; a brother who shared his face if not his nature. More than a playmate. A companion, a counterpart.

It was hard to reconcile those nascent memories with the young man who stood before him now, but every day brought them closer.

"Your eyes must be tired. I got more coffee beans. You want me to pull you a shot?"

"Nah," Dante said distractedly. "I'm good." His eyes found the text once more, as if he hadn't already finished. As if he hadn't read it through twice while Vergil was gone.

"Well, what do you think?" Vergil's hands came to rest on him, as he came up behind Dante's chair. His voice was sober; clear and sedulous as ever. It came to Dante's ears on low, warm wings in the dim blue light of the vast room, giving the cavernous silence of the loft a cozy intimacy it hadn't won and didn't deserve.

Dante closed his eyes briefly, as his breath caught, willing himself not to tense, weathering his body's response until his throat unlocked enough to answer. _I can't_, he wanted to say. _I can't think when you do that._

That was something about Vergil—the way he'd nonchalantly touch Dante whenever it struck him to do so, like there was nothing to it. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Even now, he was kneading Dante's bare shoulders with studiously absent affection.

There'd been no one in Dante's life who touched him as easily and impulsively as Vergil did. No one that wasn't a woman, a one-night-stand, and usually a professional. It was always on the house, in his case, but those torrid, throwaway interludes were the extent of what had passed for physical contact in his life thus far. Their caresses, while effusive and even sincere, felt confusing in hindsight, transient and cheap compared to the honest, potent affection that emanated from his brother.

He was conscious of Vergil's scent, and Vergil's brawny presence; that his brother's half-gloves and the scant straps of his well-worn wifebeater were the last tenuous barrier between his flesh and Vergil's palms. He was all too aware that without them he would be fully skin-to-skin with his sudden brother. He was afraid to find out how cataclysmic that might be.

"You read it, right?" Vergil's long, strong fingers eased casually into his muscle on both sides with deft, brusque affection, as he shifted to get a better look at the screen. "Tell me what you really think, Dante. I can handle it."

In spite of his best intentions, Dante felt himself responding, the way he had from the beginning, from the moment he'd first locked eyes with his brother. His heart might have been guarded, his mind undecided, but his body had never been more certain.

He could sense Vergil behind him as he leaned in, presence joined by actual substance. His brother's proximity brought a sudden stirring somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Vergil's amulet grazed his back lightly, chills shooting through him as he stiffened in more ways than one.

Dante raised a hand, abruptly. "Look, if we're going to do this, you need to not…touch me…like that."

Vergil looked surprised, and a little chagrined. "I'm sorry, Dante," he said, readily. "I was just being fraternal. Look, I know we don't know each other that well yet. I shouldn't have taken the liberty."

"It's not that, okay?" Dante stared down, hard, without seeing; at his fingers paused on the trackpad, at the artfully scarred table. That was the last thing he wanted Vergil to get from this, but there was no good way to break it to him, either—the kind of thoughts his own brother harbored, and the impulses he suppressed. That Dante was the amoral deviant he'd always been told he was destined to be.

"Whatever it is," assured Vergil, "it's all right." He held up his palms with a smile—warm, if wistful, and a little bit brittle. "Hands off, brother. From now on. I promise."

"That's not the takeaway here," Dante said, bluntly, still staring. "All right? Just…trust me."

"I do," said Vergil, simply, after a moment. "That's why you're here."

Dante grasped the edges of the desk, shoving the chair back, bracing himself at arms' length. "Vergil."

His brother paused, waiting in silent expectation.

"When you touch me like that, it feels…wrong. I mean, not wrong, like repulsive or whatever. Just…right in the wrong way." He paused, feeling his voice drop to the floor and roll into the shadows, picking up grit on the way. "Like a little too right, if you know what I mean."

"I don't." Vergil gave an indulgent half-laugh. "But that's okay. It bothers you, and that's all you need to say, and all I need to know."

Eyes closed, Dante cursed softly under his breath. He didn't like letting that stand, not after Vergil had welcomed him back into his life with such open-armed acceptance. Vergil had searched for him. He had mattered to Vergil. He was hit by a sudden, vicious qualm, like a stitch in his side. He'd never had a brother. Never had anyone.

He couldn't leave it there; leave Vergil with the idea that his affection was anathema, that his brotherly overtures were unwanted, and unwelcome. He needed to say a little more. Just enough to mitigate the damage, without betraying the depravity inside, whatever warped incestuous obsession his deprived mind was conjuring up out of oblivion, using nothing but the unwitting kindness and genuine interest his brother had shown him as incendiary grist for the fantasy mill.

Carefully, he let his lips part. The words came slowly, and he kept his eyes trained just this side of his brother's gaze. "I guess I've just never had family. There was no one, and…I'm fucked up. I'm doing it wrong. I've got a loose wire or something. Crossed wires, maybe. I don't know."

"I don't understand." Vergil looked rapt and affable, as if he was trying to, as if he would genuinely like to. "But I imagine it must feel strange—"

"Strange isn't the word."

"Well, if it's not strange, then I don't see what the—"

"It feels hot," Dante cut in abruptly, at last, unable to stand his brother's reasonable, relentless probing. "There. You happy?"

"Hot?" Vergil looked mystified, like he'd never heard the word in a metaphorical sense before. Like he was thinking of the temperature. Which figured, because what normal mind would go to such a twisted place in this context?

"Jesus Christ, don't make me say it." Dante closed his eyes for a moment. His shoulders rose and fell with a heavy breath. "When you touch me, it…turns me on, and it shouldn't."

Vergil stared. "You're aroused?" he said, sounding more fascinated than horrified. Dante didn't speak right away, and in the next moment Vergil grasped the back of the chair and spun him around.

"Hey," Dante protested.

Vergil swept his lucid gaze down the length of him, lingering a little lower than he liked. "Interesting."

"Hey, what the hell. It's not like it's hard or something. I have some fucking self-control." He was lying. It was, and he didn't. Not when it came to this. Under the pale regard of his handsome brother's scrutiny, the ache intensified. He shifted, glowering.

"If that's how it looks just hanging around, then I'm happy for you, brother."

"Maybe it is," retorted Dante. He grabbed a dormant tablet from the table, holding it protectively over his lap. "Now stop looking at it."

"Why?" Vergil's smooth brow knit with curiosity. "Does it get harder when I do?"

"I'm not a fucking science project, this isn't the fucking science fair, and you're not building a scale model of my dick with baking soda and vinegar. You can stop with the clinical analysis. I've had enough of that in my life. Forget it, all right? Forget I said anything."

"I've read about this." Vergil was nodding, intently, with growing surety. "The Westermarck Effect. It's quite common."

"The hell is the Westermarck Effect?"

Vergil explained, as always, artless and sincere. "It's a natural aversion that develops between kids who are raised together. Biologically, it evolved to discourage inbreeding, but it happens with non-related kids raised as siblings, too. I've read it's often a problem in countries with arranged marriages, where the kids grow up together."

Dante grimaced. "Cool story, bro."

"It is a cool story."

"Fine. What does it have to with my fucked-up boner?"

Vergil was eager to clarify. "Because when siblings aren't raised together, there's no Westermarck effect, and when they meet as adults, they often find themselves…attracted."

Dante eyed him, suspicious that Vergil was just giving him shit, but it didn't seem to jibe with his brother's sense of humor as he knew it so far. "Are you serious?"

"Totally. You don't see a sibling. All you see is someone who gets you. Who has the same habits and interests and mannerisms. Someone who understands you. Someone who feels like home. There's even a name for it: GSA. Genetic—"

"But I do see a sibling." Dante's voice was low, his throat dry. Vergil was his brother; he was never more aware of the fact than at that moment. This close, his presence struck a carnal harmonic, thrumming throughout Dante's body like resonant strings—whether they were heaven's harps or hell's violins, or both, joined in some unholy concerto, courtesy of their blasphemous hybrid pedigree.

_I don't want you in spite of your being my brother. I want you because you are._

Vergil was warming to his idea. "It makes perfect sense. You and I were raised apart; not to mention the amnesia. Not only that, we didn't even know the other existed. Until now."

"Yeah, maybe." Dante said it flatly, cupping the back of his neck uneasily. "I don't think it's just that, though."

Vergil's clear browed furrowed. "Why not?"

"Because it still wouldn't account for…the guy thing. If you were a girl, right, it'd make sense. But I've never been into guys. I'm straight as it fucking gets."

"Oh," said Vergil. "I just assumed…"

"Assumed what?" It was Dante's turn to stare.

"Well…" Vergil looked uncomfortable. Actually at odds; off his well-played game for a nice change of pace. "All that stuff Kat told me, with the strippers and such. I don't know. It seemed a little…like compensation."

"Compensation? Wait a fucking minute, are you saying you think I'm—" Dante broke off, newly incredulous. "It's not like that, okay? I just don't like complications. You thought I was into guys?"

"Well…no, not exactly. But it is the 21st century, after all. I just figured you were as flexible as anyone. Maybe just not as honest about it."

"Are you?" Dante was still taken aback. "Into guys?"

"I'm not against it. I mean, I don't get out much, obviously." Vergil parted with a faint smile. "Work comes first."

"What about Kat?"

"What about her?" For the first time, Vergil looked bewildered, and in the next beat his brother had moved past it, dismissing it outright, as if Dante had uttered a non sequitur to avoid the topic. "Dante, I had no idea you felt this way."

"You found me in a fucking trailer. I guess you shouldn't be surprised."

"Why do you sound so bitter?"

"I don't know, Vergil. Maybe because this bullshit universe finally gave me something, gave me a real-live brother, and half the time, all I can think about is what he'd look like naked. What he's like when he fucks. When he comes. I don't know, maybe it's that."

A beat passed. Vergil released a quiet breath. "That's very specific."

"Yeah, well, I know how you love details."

Vergil hesitated. "Just tell me one thing, Dante. Is it really me you're responding to? Or is it…something else?"

Dante couldn't look at him. "No, it's definitely you."

The whole idea seemed to fascinate Vergil. He took a slow breath, looking almost exhilarated. "I think we should try."

Dante stared. "Try what?"

"Being intimate."

"You're crazy."

"On the contrary. I've never been more sane."

Dante pushed to his feet. Vergil was slightly taller than him. He'd noticed it before, but now it made his pulse react, for reasons unknown. "Okay, whoa. You're way off-script here, so let me help you hit your marks. This is where you tell me about the Westermarck Effect, and explain that it's normal, and okay, and understandable, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of, but that nothing like that can ever happen between us."

"Why not?"

"Why _not_? Because it's wrong."

"We're not human, Dante. Who's to say what's right for us?"

"I can't believe what I'm hearing."

"Dante, you don't understand," Vergil insisted. "Touch me. Go on. You'll see."

Dante frowned; followed Vergil's unsubtle glance down to his slim, dark pants. Vergil reached for his hand, after a moment. "No," he ripped out at once, indignant, jerking it back. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Just touch it." Vergil was calm, reasonable.

"No."

Vergil rolled his eyes. "Not for my benefit. I just want you to know…you're not alone."

_You're not alone._

Slowly, Dante looked up, searching the endless intellectual winter of his brother's gaze, finding only quiet sincerity there, like a campfire on the tundra.

It drew him in, against his will; made him want to move closer. To warm himself, after so long in the cold. It had been so long, he didn't even realize he'd been freezing forever. It had just always been like this. Ever since he'd been a kid.

"Nothing we do is ever wrong, Dante." Vergil was earnest, forward-leaning; handsome and clear-eyed as ever. "Everything we do is beautiful, reasonable. Perfect." He laid a fraternal hand on Dante's shoulder, lingering there. "How could our physical union be anything else?"

"Jesus Christ, are you hearing yourself?"

"I hear that you love me."

"I never said—"

"But you do."

Dante fell silent, staring.

"And I love you," Vergil continued, as if no beat had been dropped.

He was overcome by the words, and the touch, and the way his brother looked in the moment, light eyes glowing with unvarnished truth, their luminous color offset against the brown-crimson sweater; how much greater than human his beauty could be, how robustly unearthly it was.

"I'll say what I said before, Dante. Just give me a chance to show you."

"Who I really am?"

"Who you are to me."

Dante was conscious of the silence again, the utter serenity of their surroundings in counterpoint to the ragged beat of his heart; the way the faded world had been banished to the margins, as if they were the only two beings in existence. As if Vergil had that power, among his many others.

He closed his eyes. "You always make the worst shit sound like a great idea. How the hell do you do that?"

"I don't know," said Vergil. "It's a gift, I guess."

"Don't you have enough of those yet?"

"Let me give you one."

"You've given me plenty."

Vergil paused. "How about a kiss from your little brother?"

Dante eyed him with acid skepticism. "We're twins." He lifted his chin to sling the last word.

Vergil smiled. "We are. But I was told you were born first."

"That doesn't make any sense." Dante had always thought of himself as the world's younger brother, last born and forgotten, left to his own devices, middle finger permanently extended. Vergil, in contrast, seemed to embody the magnus frater type, the universal big brother; poised and thoughtful, amused and indulgent, steady and sure.

"Who knows what's true." Vergil's shrug was careless, dismissive. "The records are…nonexistent. Memories are only so reliable, and the rest is hearsay. The only truth we can confirm is the one in front of us." He paused. "What we can touch, Dante."

A shiver went through Dante that his body didn't betray.

Vergil held his gaze for a beat longer. "Wait here," he said, then turned and went back to the kitchen. He pulled down a couple of shot glasses from the open shelves, then ducked to retrieve a bottle from under the island. He uncapped it with a minimal twist of his wrist and returned to Dante, who hadn't moved a muscle except to breathe.

He eyed Vergil warily as he poured. "What's this?"

"Rye."

"What for?"

"One for you, one for me. We drink, and I kiss you. Then we'll know. Bottoms up."

He held it out. Dante took it, staring across at him; uncertain but defiant.

Vergil faced him, raising his glass. "To brotherhood," he said, as their eyes met.

They drank. Dante tossed it back like medicine and slammed the glass down like a gavel, feeling the burning warmth bloom through a body already half on fire. Vergil drank his more mindfully, savoring it in a long, single swallow, eyes closed. Then he set it on the table and moved in close, at once.

Violins swelled. Among other things.

If he'd expected his brother to hesitate, he clearly didn't know him well enough yet.

Vergil's hand clasped the back of his neck, a fraternal gesture transformed in the alchemy of context, by the nature of intent. He drew their faces near and lingered there, letting their breath war softly, in pulses of heightening counterpoint, lips parted, hovering just shy of Dante's. Too close to see his lambent eyes, but close enough to feel them.

Dante fought the urge to flinch away from the intimacy of it.

He lost that fight in the next swallowed breath, turning his cheek all at once, gaze shooting down and angling to the side. Seeing nothing, as before, but unable to the stand the onus of the moment; his brother's undivided attention, and the inevitable intention behind it.

He felt Vergil's half-gloved hand take his face, guiding it back to meet the heat of his alabaster brow and Roman-shaven cheek. His thumb slowly stroked the side of Dante's throat, a touch that was both hard promise and soft reassurance.

_He's really gonna do this._

When Vergil pulled the trigger, it was like a bolt went through him.

His brother's lips were lush and full, as he angled to catch Dante's mouth on the bias, warm and smooth as they parted in an obscenely fond caress, cupping and stroking his own.

He was aware of everything, all at once—all of it warmth, from the unexpected tenderness of Vergil's approach, to the distinctly male fusion of musk and cologne that rose from his shoulders and chest, emanating from the skin beneath his sweater.

It took everything he had not to seize Vergil by the front of it. Take this somewhere rougher, more transactional—to a place he understood. Instead he kept his hands at his sides and let himself be kissed, grasping the edges of the desk to keep them down.

He knew that with a single act, Vergil had just broken his world.

A world held together with duct tape and spite, but his world, nonetheless; the scaffold he'd hung his life upon.

Vergil's lips left his, as he pulled back just enough to speak. "Interesting." It was a near-whisper. His pulse seemed heightened, his light eyes slightly hectic. "Well, that answers that question." He breathed out slowly. "For me at least."

In the next moment his hand fell away from Dante's neck, and he turned, walking thoughtfully across the room.

Dante stared after him. "What, no tongue?" he managed to bite out, reverting to the instincts that had served him up until now, to force insouciance; insolence at any cost.

He stood there, left undone, in a limbo of a different kind, not even sure what conclusion Vergil had drawn. Holding the pieces of himself together with the all-purpose epoxy of sarcasm. "You call that a kiss?"

Vergil smiled absently. "You can't begin at forte, Dante. It leaves you nowhere to go."

"And where are we going, exactly?" He could hear the low tremor in his own voice, taut and demanding, restrained on the tightest leash he could muster.

"I'm going upstairs."

Dante followed Vergil's gaze to the loft. The words were cryptic, ambiguous, and he wasn't sure which way he was supposed to interpret them. But in the next moment his brother spoke again, removing all doubt.

"You can come if you want to. I hope you will, of course—but I understand if you don't. Take your time. The night is young, and I'll wait. If you come, we can explore this further. If you don't, we'll never speak of it again. Everything as it was, brother. You have my word."

Dante held fast, moored in place, watching him go—silently wrestling with the tangle of alien emotions his brother's lips had conjured forth. Grappling in the wake of his withdrawal, and with him, his ineffable shadow; the silent blue-dark swath of velvet reason and the gracious, assiduous tendrils of affection that quietly embraced Dante by inches, killing him with kindness, persuading away his defenses, convincing him to hand over his armor, piece by piece.

He'd never felt anything like it. Never responded to anything, or anyone, like this. Was it only that he'd never known love? Did he have it twisted?

Was it unnatural? Or merely supernatural?

"If we're not human, does your Westermarck Effect even have any meaning?" He couldn't sieve the cynicism from the words, but his resistance was in ruins, and his brother surely knew it.

"Maybe not," admitted Vergil, pausing at the staircase. "But that's just it, Dante. Don't you see? It doesn't matter. In this entire world and that one, on earth, and in Limbo, there are but two Nephilim. We're _species nova_. What's true for you and me is, de facto, right and natural. Universal, because it's the only truth possible."

When he was gone, Dante felt himself buckle back against the desk, letting it hold his weight. Cursing his brother. Aware that he was still painfully hard. He breathed out in a shudder, running a slow hand over his head, as his eye fell on the bottle Vergil had left.

He turned to grab it, facing the desk; poured himself another shot and swore as he downed it. Then he poured a third. Falling forward on his hands for moment, he slowly raised his head to confront his own reflection in the glass. His dark hair was disheveled from his brother's hands. The conflict in his pale eyes was clear, but so was the desire.

_Okay, Vergil. Show me._

He scrubbed a hand over his face, swallowed the whiskey, pushed back from the desk and went.


End file.
